How to Use morality play in a Sentence

morality play

noun
  • McMahon likes to remind scolds that wrestling is a morality play.
    — Zach Helfand, New Yorker, 20 Apr. 2026
  • But trans kids have become pawns in this country’s toxic morality play.
    — Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 5 Mar. 2021
  • His play declined due in part to injuries, and his downfall turned into a morality play.
    — Jay Jaffe, SI.com, 16 Oct. 2017
  • Basie watch the scene, made no move to stop it, and in fact quite evidently enjoyed the morality play.
    — Larry Tye, TIME, 9 May 2024
  • Beneath all the terror and gore, Jaws is largely a morality play.
    — Neil Swidey, BostonGlobe.com, 9 July 2019
  • Both saw foreign policy as a morality play pitting good against evil.
    — Jason Fields, Newsweek, 5 Dec. 2024
  • The second is a morality play in which blame can be laid, revenge can be had, and justice or its opposite might be served.
    — Christian Lorentzen, Harper's Magazine, 17 Aug. 2021
  • That leaves us with one morality play neverending and two guys with their noses pressed to the Cooperstown glass.
    — Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 26 Jan. 2022
  • As his senior season winds down, Heimlich has been cast as the central figure in a morality play.
    — Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 23 May 2018
  • The tone and substance toggle abruptly among satire, melodrama and morality play.
    — Mike Hale, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2018
  • These works are morality plays about courage and determination.
    — Alan Furst, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2018
  • And as a result, the morality play scheduled for Rowan County this fall has been canceled.
    — Andrew Wolfson, The Courier-Journal, 23 May 2018
  • Football, after all, is a game, not an inspirational morality play.
    — CBS News, 12 Feb. 2023
  • If there’s no real nuance in these depictions, that’s because this is a morality play, almost a fable.
    — Rumaan Alam, The New Republic, 15 Jan. 2020
  • Without being explicit about it, Panahi has crafted a morality play.
    — Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor, 17 Oct. 2025
  • The prospect of child care re-opening turns a basic, beneficial need into a morality play with too many monologues and hand-wringing.
    — Pete Croatto, Good Housekeeping, 4 June 2020
  • Treat the Rio Grande dispute as a morality play and tariffs feel satisfying.
    — Newsweek Editors, MSNBC Newsweek, 9 Dec. 2025
  • The singsong verse of the morality plays is countered by ribald cross talk delivered with naturalistic verve.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2018
  • For years, each big fight was a parable; an allegory; a morality play staged, quite literally, on canvas.
    — Jacob Stern, The Atlantic, 18 Nov. 2021
  • Of course, for many viewers, there’s nothing inherently insidious about the film, which doesn’t have the tone of a morality play.
    — Audrey Farley, The Atlantic, 15 July 2019
  • What surrounds them is largely trite and artificial, a morality play with little depth in the creation of its characters.
    — Los Angeles Times, 7 Aug. 2019
  • The Clippers’ players had been caught up in a firestorm and were navigating both a playoff series as well as a public morality play.
    — Ann Killion, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 May 2018
  • Jayson's encounter with the school's disciplinary measures seems more like a morality play than anything that has to do with him or Owen as characters.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 16 Oct. 2020
  • This arguably means Link as a character has more in common with older morality plays than more modern characters.
    — WIRED, 9 Nov. 2023
  • Since then, all sorts of filmmakers have splashed drama and morality plays on the wide-open canvas of the Western, with varying degrees of success.
    — and Kevin Jacobsen, EW.com, 21 June 2024
  • But culture wars tend to reduce every conflict to a simple morality play, as Hlavacik repeatedly shows.
    — Jonathan Zimmerman, The Atlantic, 23 Dec. 2025
  • But the morality play involving Pete will be relevant as long as morality plays exist.
    — Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 26 Jan. 2022
  • Moses’ life changes forever — initially feels like a morality play with everyone playing the most obvious version of their part.
    — Caroline Framke, Variety, 8 Apr. 2022
  • But the Ring of Honor isn’t about morality plays or personality contests.
    — Mike Bianchi, The Orlando Sentinel, 21 Aug. 2025
  • What Nafisi does best, and the reason her work has endured, is precisely to refuse cartoonish portrayals and basic morality plays.
    — Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 26 Jan. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'morality play.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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